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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24287926">one good thing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/graysku11/pseuds/graysku11'>graysku11</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(catra thinks), Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Missing Scene, One-Sided Attraction, catra gets chipped and all of us cry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:40:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,622</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24287926</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/graysku11/pseuds/graysku11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When she wakes, the memories come in flashes. Pairs of green eyes like a pack of wild animals come to hunt her, their alpha male at the head of the room. Bubbling emerald liquid, hissing not with the sound of burning acid but with the insidious, poisonous whisper of the Hive Mind. Looking down at her feet, inches from the edge of the luminous pool. Horde Prime’s four eyes burning into her very soul.</p><p>But when she’s asleep, she relives the moment over and over again.</p><p>[Catra’s missing perspective in “Stranded”.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adora/Catra (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>136</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>one good thing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i should be writing fluff now bc catradora canon!!! but uh i wanted to suffer some more so here you go. all feedback is welcome!</p><p>edit: WOW thank you all for 100 kudos :))) i really appreciate everyone's support!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She thrashes as she dreams, which must have prompted Adora to come running into her room. When the other girl asks if she’s all right, if she’s having nightmares, Catra deflects, like she always does. It’s what she’s best at. “Yeah, I keep having this horrible vision of a blonde girl who thinks she’s better than everyone barging into my room all day… <em> oh, wait </em>…”.</p><p>Even as she rolls over to escape having to lock eyes with her - (friend? enemy? rescuer? Adora is all of these to Catra, and yet none of them seems quite right), she trembles a little, thinking of the visions that had really filled her head before Adora walked into the room. </p><p>When she wakes, the memories come in flashes. Pairs of green eyes like a pack of wild animals come to hunt her, their alpha male at the head of the room. Bubbling emerald liquid, hissing not with the sound of burning acid but with the insidious, poisonous whisper of the Hive Mind. Looking down at her feet, inches from the edge of the luminous pool. Horde Prime’s four eyes burning into her very soul.</p><p>But when she’s asleep, she relives the moment over and over again.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>As she’s forced closer and closer to the seething chartreuse whirlpool, she dimly remembers thrashing, clinging to a log, saved mercifully by Glimmer’s nauseating teleportation powers, the princess’ only thanks being a wet lick from Catra’s sandpaper tongue. This time, Glimmer is not here to save her, because Catra’s finally returned the favor.</p><p><em> One good thing</em>, she thinks, but she’s not bitter. She’d broken the promise she’d made to Adora so long ago, and now she’s paying the price. At least she’d gotten to tell her she was sorry, to save her from being captured by Horde Prime.  Hopefully.</p><p>The clone forcibly holding her arms behind her back is too strong to be overpowered by shouting, biting or clawing, as Catra quickly learns. Soon, she’s mere steps from the pool, and one by one, the clones begin to chant.</p><p>
  <em> All beings must suffer to become pure. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>All beings must suffer to become pure. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>All beings must suffer to become pure. </em>
</p><p>Catra is certainly going to suffer, she thinks, but there is no way that <em> this </em>is what becoming “pure” means. She could never be pure, not after everything she’s done. She can only hope that Adora never falls into Prime’s grasp, and if she’s lucky, that she’ll remember Catra fighting off the clones, saving Glimmer, when she thinks of Catra running her claws down She-Ra’s back, Catra flipping the portal switch while Adora pleads before her, Catra using Adora’s own sword to cut down her last hope at not falling off of the Crystal Castle cliff. </p><p>The clones fall silent as Horde Prime raises his left index finger, the one with the terrible silver claw attached. Its ridges gleam in the almost-neon illumination of the room; Catra chooses to focus on this rather than the terrifying figure’s awful smile, a vibrant green where Hordak’s were once blood-red.</p><p>“Catra,” he says, voice dripping with scorn, “you have disappointed me, but you have only delayed my plans. She-Ra will come soon enough.”</p><p>Catra may be down, but she isn’t giving up without a fight. “No, she isn’t. I made sure of that. Glimmer is gone, and so is Adora.”</p><p>At this, Prime snaps his fingers, and the clone that had been restraining her suddenly shoves her with the force of a Horde tank into the pool, the color of which strangely reminds her of the Crystal Castle spiderwebs she’d cut down so long ago. </p><p>The liquid is deep, deeper than she expected, and almost instantly she’s up to her ears in it. It’s consuming her, inside and out. She’d heard a faint whispering when she first walked into the room, but now it’s a deafening roar, and the lime-green solution seeps into her body through her nose, ears and mouth. It soaks her hair, the fluff on her limbs, the clothes she’s still wearing. She splutters and flails her limbs in a feeble attempt to swim, but the ooze seems to pull her in deeper the harder she tries to escape. A primal fear tells that it will fill her lungs until she’ll never breathe again.</p><p>As Catra struggles, Prime laughs, a terrible, rasping sound. “Oh, little sister. You still don’t understand, do you?” At his words, the liquid recedes just enough so that she can open her mouth and respond. </p><p>“What? I-I already told you. She chose her side, I chose mine. She d-doesn’t care about me. I don’t care about her,” Catra grits out, gasping as her lungs frantically try to recover from the oxygen debt they were just plunged into. </p><p>“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong,” Horde Prime replies, terrible grin etched on his face wider than ever.</p><p>He closes his eyes, all four of them, and Catra cries out at the sudden pain that rushes to her head as Prime makes a grabbing motion with his hand like he’s ripping her memories from her brain.</p><p>Touching Adora’s forehead with a teasing finger as they’re sparring, Adora smiling softly in return. </p><p>The two of them dancing at Princess Prom, Adora pulling her close after saving her from the cliff. </p><p>A little version of her, making a promise with little Adora that neither of them will keep. (A bigger version of her hardening at that realization.)</p><p>“I see all, Catra. I know all. Adora broke your heart, didn’t she?”</p><p>Catra instantly goes on the defensive, tries to deny his assertion, but the words won’t come out of her mouth. The truth does instead. “S-she left me.”</p><p>“But you love her still, do you not? And she, you.” </p><p><em> Adora… what? She’s never felt the same way I do. She’ll always choose the greater good over me. It’s just how she is. </em> Catra can only hope that Prime can’t hear her thoughts as an even more wicked expression crosses his face.</p><p>This time, he doesn’t have to compel her to respond. <em> You love her still. </em>It’s not a question at all. Her pounding heart, which is seemingly trying to beat itself out of her chest, is answer enough. </p><p>“So you see, little one, she <em>will </em>come. Not for Glimmer. For you. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”</p><p>As he speaks, the water, or whatever it is, begins to rise again. The dull roar of the waves, which began as a whisper, is becoming louder and louder, and with a strange sense of clarity, Catra realizes what’s causing the sound. It’s the Hive Mind, the neural network allowing Horde Prime to control all the clones. And she knows that if she doesn’t escape, she’ll become a part of it.</p><p>Soon, the emerald-green liquid is even higher than it was when she was first pushed in, and it’s deep enough that Catra can no longer keep her feet on the bottom and still have room to breathe. Instead, she desperately paddles in an attempt to stay afloat. </p><p><em> Adora </em>can’t <em>come</em>, she thinks, barely able to hear herself over the rushing water and the clamor of the Hive Mind. <em> She won’t. She doesn’t need me. No one does. Glimmer is the queen of Bright Moon, not to mention she can teleport and cast stupid spells. I… have just about nothing going for me. Plus, I warned her. Horde Prime is ready for her. She won’t risk getting herself captured. Adora might be dumb, but she’s not </em>that <em>dumb.  </em></p><p>Across the room, Horde Prime only chuckles darkly, startling Catra out of her stupor. She’s more aware than ever of the water levels, which are inching up by the second. Her feet are still churning enough that her head is above water, but lactic acid rushes through her legs with every movement she makes.</p><p>“Enough about what you <em>think </em> Adora will or won’t do, child. What do you <em> want </em>her to do?”</p><p>With a dawning sense of horror, Catra realizes the truth: selfishly, she <em>does </em>want Adora to come. It doesn’t matter that the entire reason she’s in this mess is that she sacrificed herself to save Adora. It doesn’t matter that it will mean that Adora will get to be the shining hero once more, to lord that victory over her again as she’s done so many times before. The emerald fluid is about to cover her head; there’s no time for worrying about that kind of thing.</p><p>Instead, in that moment, Catra sees little Adora again, the one that had promised always to be her friend, the one that had promised to look out for her just as she had Adora -- her last hope. She can no longer keep her head afloat, and the only thing she can think before she sinks into unconsciousness is <em> Adora, Adora, Adora</em>. </p><p>Her limp body drifts to the bottom of the pool while Prime looks on, and the clones begin to chant once more:</p><p>
  <em> All beings must suffer to become pure. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>All beings must suffer to become pure. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>All beings must suffer to become pure. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Catra is shocked awake by the unnaturally smooth hands of a Horde clone dragging her roughly by her drenched clothes out of the pool and down the hallway to a room she hasn’t visited yet. She tries to escape, but her limbs feel numb and heavy, and she can’t move them more than a few inches before they come crashing back to the cold tile floors of Prime’s flagship.</p><p>After what seems like hours, she’s strapped into a pure white reclining chair, which rests in the center of a room painted the same color as the chartreuse liquid in the pool. Or maybe her eyes are permanently contaminated with that color. At the highest point of the chair is a headrest with a hole, maybe two inches wide, in the center. Just behind the chair is Prime himself, who informs her, his freakishly cold breath inches from her neck: “I wanted you to be awake for this next part. To make sure you get to witness your transformation, of course.”</p><p>“My <em> what?”  </em>Catra exclaims with a little more attitude than befits her current situation. She presses her arms and legs against her restraints in desperation, but she only succeeds in chafing her skin against the edges of the straps.</p><p>“You see, as I said before, all beings have a place in Prime’s light. Even you, little sister,” he replies before holding up a silver tube with blinking green lights. “This is your connection to the Hive Mind. Only when you are chipped can you truly become pure.”</p><p>“I - what? No! I - I'll do whatever you say!” She’s bluffing, and he knows it. There’s no going back from what she’s done. The consequences of doing the right thing are hers to bear. </p><p>As she speaks, Prime traces a claw-finger against her cheek. “Hmm… I don’t know if we’ll be able to properly install the chip without your neck being exposed. Look at this <em>mane </em>… you really are a wild thing, aren’t you, Etherian?”</p><p>Cold fear washes through Catra’s veins. “Don’t touch me.” Prime ignores her, holding up the biggest pair of scissors she’s ever seen before beginning his work, slashing off her hair in large swaths.</p><p>As chunks of her dark brown tresses drift to the ground all around her, she’s reminded of how she’d sliced off the fluffy gray tufts behind her ears with her own claws. Getting rid of them had made her feel in control.  As Prime cuts away, she’s never felt less so. </p><p>An agonizing amount of time later, Catra trembles as Prime uses some sort of sticky gel to slick back what’s left of her hair in a style uncomfortably similar to that of the clones, then beckons to one of them to bring the small mirror he holds. She refuses to look into it at first, but curiosity gets the better of her and she glances into the reflective surface. She barely recognizes herself.</p><p>From the time she was five or six, her hair has always been an unruly mess, but it was <em>her </em>unruly mess, Even when she’d cut off her tufts, her locks had been longer than ever, and she’d taken to running her hands through it to center herself. No more -- it’s plastered almost flat to her head, barely extending to the nape of her neck, and her always-present mask is missing, gone who knows where as she nearly drowned in the bottom of Prime’s purification pool.</p><p>Detached from reality, she barely notices that Prime has picked up his chip installation tool, which glints evilly in the artificial lighting, and inserted it into the hole in the headrest of her chair. With a press of the button on the back of the instrument, a searing pain registers at the back of Catra’s neck before she slumps forward, unconscious, for the second time that day.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>When she comes back to consciousness, her hands instantly go to her ears in a futile attempt to drown out the deafening chatter of the Hive Mind.</p><p>
  <em> Soldier 18537 is being sent to destination 6852. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Copy.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Navigation request: Secondary Server Room 322. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Access granted. Turn left at the next two corridors and walk three doors down. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Attention: Prisoner being brought to throne room. Detainee self-identifies as She-Ra of Etheria.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Roger. Horde Prime awaits. </em>
</p><p><em> She-Ra? </em>  Catra is supposed to know who that is, she’s pretty sure, but no matter how hard she tries to remember the only information she can come up with is the image of a blonde girl, smiling. Not at her, though - at a dark-skinned boy and a pink-and-purple haired girl. Almost as quickly as the image comes to her mind, it vanishes, in its place a set of instructions. <em> Report to the throne room immediately.  </em></p><p>Two clones escort her across the almost-frighteningly narrow bridge that leads to Prime’s throne. Catra tries not to look down off the ledge, which reminds her of that of the Horde prison back on Etheria except that it’s at least twice as high up. (As quickly as she thinks of this memory, it’s gone, as though she's remembering a past life.)</p><p>The figures surrounding the throne come into focus, and she catches a glimpse of a dirty blonde ponytail, a red jacket. A name flashes through her mind at the sight, and instinctively, she calls out. It comes out weak and strangled, as if the voices in her head would rather speak instead: “Adora?”</p><p>“Catra?” comes the devastatingly hopeful reply from the other girl.</p><p>But Catra isn’t listening, can’t, because she sees the girl in scenarios she can no longer connect to her memory.</p><p>Adora pulling her hand away from Catra’s, running off as she leaves Catra to stare after her in the swirling dust and wind.</p><p>Adora, in a new form - this is She-Ra, her brain supplies - and the other… <em> princesses?  </em>swamping Catra with a wave of pure, multicolored magical power, washing her away as though she weighs little more than an insect. </p><p>Adora staring at her, eyes filled with cold anger, as the room falls apart around them and Catra turns tail to run.</p><p>With dawning certainty, she knows that <em> Adora </em>must be the reason her head feels like it’s splitting in two right now, trying to accommodate her own thoughts as well as those of the Hive Mind.</p><p>Adora broke her heart. </p><p>As the last of her willpower fades away, the Hive Mind becomes her sole influence.</p><p>Adora causes her pain.</p><p>Prime gives her peace.</p><p>A new set of instructions, and she’s speaking involuntarily before she can even register them. It comes out robotic and monotone: </p><p>“Hello, Adora.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yell at me on tumblr @forcecaptains or leave a comment to let me know what you thought! don't worry i'm In Pain too</p></blockquote></div></div>
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